Michigan Horsewoman Dies In Fall During Olympic Qualifying Event

A 33-year Michigan horsewoman and new mom was killed in Allentown, NJ, Saturday when she fell from her horse in a qualifying event for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, event organizers said.

Philippa Humphreys, a British citizen who lived in the western Michigan community of Rockford, fell from her horse near a fence while on a cross-country course of the Jersey Fresh International Three-Day Event, according to an announcement on the event website.

Humphreys was pronounced dead at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton. Her horse, Rich N Famous, was not injured in the accident.

“All of us connected with the Jersey Fresh International are deeply saddened by today’s tragic news, and we extend our condolences to Philippa’s husband, Peter, and to her entire family,” event chairman Dan Wunderlich said in a statement.

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The Telegraph, a newspaper in Humphreys’ native Great Britain, said friends remembered her as a “truly amazing woman,” as well as a “great horsewoman and trainer.”

Humphreys began riding when she was 2, and met her future husband, Peter, as a child at the family grouse hunting moor. She and Peter moved to the United States in 2005 to start a business.

On Facebook, she recently posted that she has “so much to be thankful for.”

“I always say life is about the journey,” she wrote. “And I am having one heck of a journey.”

Twitter user Paul Lawrence Jr., posted a photo of Humphreys along with condolences. “I love this sport,” he wrote. “I hate this sport.”

According to The Telegraph, Humphreys was the third person to die in a fall in a cross country horse ride in as many months.

Two other Olympic contenders, Olivia Inglis, 17, and Caitlyn Fischer, 19, died from falls sustained during cross-country qualifying trials in Australia in March and April, respectively, The Telegraph said.

In a separate accident at the qualifying event in New Jersey, a horse was euthanized after it fell at Fence 19, race officials said.